What is a mode?
A mode is the way someone presents at a particular time and includes a particular set of thoughts, motives, feelings, sensations and behaviours. A shift in a mode state can be imagined by considering the difference between how someone presents when they are being reprimanded by their boss versus when they are playing with their child. Modes can block or facilitate needs being met depending on whether they are maladaptive or healthy.
The schema therapy mode model helps to explain the rapidly shifting emotions and mood states experienced by people with early trauma histories or chronic mental health difficulties who present with different parts of themselves. For example, mode switches can be seen in the therapy room when an individual shifts quickly from emotional overwhelm to feeling numb and cut off. These shifts are described as mode switching in schema therapy.
Modes (as well as schemas) primarily begin in childhood, when the child repeatedly experiences situations where their needs are not met and has to use coping strategies to survive emotionally.
Mode Mapping
In the therapy room, a mode map is created by the therapist and client to detail the different modes that represent the client, their struggles and strengths. The modes will present in different patterns at different times, dependent on the situation. The different categories of modes are detailed below.
Types of Modes
Child Modes | Vulnerable child and angry child |
Critic Modes | Demanding, punitive and guilt inducing |
Coping Modes | Surrendering, avoidant and overcompensating |
Healthy Modes | Healthy adult and happy child |
How do schemas and modes interact?
Young’s original model of Schema Therapy described 18 maladaptive schemas with each schema being addressed individually, taking into account the style of coping used to manage the schema. The model can be very helpful for understanding the difficulties presented by a person with three or four strong schemas, but becomes unwieldy when they have a large number of schemas. This is often the case for individuals who have experienced a childhood where there has been significant neglect or abuse.
As a consequence, the schema mode model was developed for working with clients who present with complex or chronic struggles with their emotional health. The mode model focuses on a lesser number of modes which ‘house’ all of the schemas. Each mode is ‘flavoured’ by the schemas housed within it. For example, the vulnerable child mode might house the abandonment and defectiveness schemas, meaning that when the individual’s vulnerable child mode is activated, they fear they’re bad and everyone will leave them.
The mode model groups together schema activation that is attended to in the same way therapeutically. For example, the vulnerable child mode might ‘house’ many different schemas which bring about strong emotions (emotional deprivation, defectiveness, abandonment, social isolation, mistrust and abuse and failure) and whichever schema or schemas are activated, the approach would be to validate the feelings of this mode, often by linking to past origins and identifying the unmet need.
Coping modes and the schemas ‘housed’ within are responded to with validation and understanding because they are the survival strategies the individual developed to cope with very difficult circumstances. However, the long-term consequences of adopting these coping modes are brought to awareness and limits are put in place empathically.
The critic modes also 'house' many schemas and are managed with clear limits to recognise the impact of their harsh messages on the vulnerable child mode and how they block needs from being met.
Therefore, the mode model brings together an unwieldy 18 schemas into a more manageable set of modes, each with a general approach to guide therapy.
How do modes help us in schema therapy?
Clients like to have their difficulties conceptualised using the mode model, often expressing relief that someone finally understands their struggles. The simplicity of the mode model helps clients to understand their problems and yet the mode model is sophisticated enough to hold the complex emotional difficulties experienced by distressed humans.
Developing a mode map with the client greatly facilitates awareness and self-reflection. Modes that are given names by the client and associated with images are more easily remembered and noticed day to day. Awareness of current difficulties is a first and necessary step towards change.
Conceptualising modes gives a basis for validating why these modes have developed. Imagery work with early memories often identifies when the modes were first needed, de-shaming their presence.
Coping modes and critic modes can be challenged and confronted in a way that feels less critical. Therapists phrase challenges using language such as “this mode is blocking your needs from being met”, which is easier for clients to receive than “your behaviour is stopping you from getting your needs met”.
Mode work can be a really fun and creative way of bringing about change, as the individual sees their struggles from new perspectives.
Would you like to bring mode work into your therapy? Come and join me to learn all about how to do this in my schema therapy training.
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